Saturday, July 25, 2015

Large flares are often associated with huge ejections of mass from the
Sun, although the association is not clear. These coronal mass ejections
(CMEs) are balloon-shaped bursts of solar wind
rising above the solar corona, expanding as they climb. Solar plasma is
heated to tens of millions of degrees, and electrons, protons, and
heavy nuclei are accelerated to near the speed of light. The
super-heated electrons from CMEs move along the magnetic field lines
faster than the solar wind can flow.

CMEs are not small either...

Rearrangement of the magnetic
field, and solar flares may result in the formation of a shock that
accelerates particles ahead of the CME loop. Each CME releases up to
100 billion kg (220 billion lb) of this material, and the speed of the
ejection can reach 1000 km/second (2 million mph) in some flares. Solar
flares and CMEs are currently the biggest "explosions" in our solar
system, roughly approaching the power in one billion hydrogen atomic bombs.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

For scary speculation about
the end of civilization in 2012, people usually turn to followers of
cryptic Mayan prophecy, not scientists. But that’s exactly what a group
of NASA-assembled researchers described in a chilling report issued
earlier this year on the destructive potential of solar storms. Entitled “Severe Space Weather Events — Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts,”
it describes the consequences of solar flares unleashing waves of
energy that could disrupt Earth’s magnetic field, overwhelming
high-voltage transformers with vast electrical currents and
short-circuiting energy grids. Such a catastrophe would cost the United
States “$1 trillion to $2 trillion in the first year,” concluded the
panel, and “full recovery could take four to 10 years.” That would, of
course, be just a fraction of global damages.